The Greater Toronto Area has been producing one great band after another, and trash metal icons Sacrifice are no exception. Born in the 1980’s and attacking the genre ever since, it’s been a wild ride of speed and aggression. Nearly two full years since the beginning of the project, it is finally about to see the light of day.

“It’s the same for every band. It’s a painful period when you’ve got an album that you’re really proud of,” shares vocalist and guitarist Rob Urbinati. “You want everyone to hear it, and then you have these really long months to wait until it comes out.”

The new album, Volume Six, is out this week, via Cursed Blessings Records in the U.S. and High Roller Records internationally. Tracked over a pair of sessions between September 2023 and May 2024, their first album in 16 years— and second since reforming in 2006—is a crowning achievement to the pursuit of your dreams and the subsequent hard work and dedication behind it. 

“There wasn’t anything contrived; it was just what came out. It deals a lot with the state of the world. You know, there’s a lot of negative things happening around the world right now and that plays out in the lyrics of the album. They’re kind of pessimistic; I just find it hard to be optimistic in this climate.”

After 2009’s The Ones I Condemn, the band was unsure if they would release another album, as the members all had lives outside of the band. While jobs and family took priority, they still found time to write music at home. Everything started to come together again in 2017, Urbinati was working on the first song of the new album, “Comatose.” Then, the pandemic hit.

“We were just starting to get some songs tight in rehearsal and then we couldn’t rehearse for a while, and then we could rehearse again, then we couldn’t. I just found that whole time to be really uncreative. It just wasn’t a good time for being creative.” 

The band pushed through one of the strangest times in recent history—something that completely upended everything—and came out on top. While Sacrifice is not a full-time job for its members, it’s remains a creative outlet outlet to fall back on when times are tough, to release some steam even in an era where artistry was struggling. Sacrifice represents exactly what it needs to for Urbinati, he can gratefully look back on everything and take it all in from a perfectly normal perspective.

“We just have regular jobs, regular lives, like anybody else, but we also have this band. I don’t know how many years since our last so it doesn’t feel that long to us, but that’s pretty long. We’ve got lives and things to do.”